• Furies of Calderon

  • Codex Alera, Book 1
  • By: Jim Butcher
  • Narrated by: Kate Reading
  • Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (15,746 ratings)

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Furies of Calderon  By  cover art

Furies of Calderon

By: Jim Butcher
Narrated by: Kate Reading
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Publisher's summary

In the realm of Alera, where people bond with the furies - elementals of earth, air, fire, water, and metal - 15-year-old Tavi struggles with his lack of furycrafting. But when his homeland erupts in chaos - when rebels war with loyalists and furies clash with furies - Tavi's simple courage will turn the tides of war.

©2005 Jim Butcher (P)2008 Penguin Audiobooks

Critic reviews

“Epic fantasy in the best way, inspired by Tolkien.” (New York Times best-selling author Simon R. Green

“A stay-up-all-night-’til-you-finish-it-book, Furies of Calderon is a marvelous read.” (Number-one New York Times best-selling author Patricia Briggs)

“Absorbing...Butcher does a thorough job of world building, to say nothing of developing his action scenes with an abundance of convincing detail.” (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Furies of Calderon

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    10,365
  • 4 Stars
    3,815
  • 3 Stars
    1,085
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Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    968
  • 2 Stars
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    157

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

This is a slog

Look…

I love Jim Butcher
I LOVE The Dresden Files

I have read this whole series before and I am relistening to it now. But I have to say, this is just not up to par with Butcher’s other works. It really takes for ever to get going and there is so many story lines happening at once, that it just doesn’t feel entertaining or exciting.

The series does get better and this book does a lot of world building, but as an over all, you kind of need to push through this one….

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

excited to continue listening

slow start. will be a series I love, and continue to listen to. Bells (referenced in other reviews) were not an issue for me during recording performance.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

You won't regret it.

The question isn't whether you're going to enjoy this story. The Real question is whether or not you can catch the hints & foreshadowing that Jim Butcher puts into this first book. You'll never guess how they pay off, deeper into the series.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Solid start.

A solid, well-written fantasy epic.

I know of Jim Butcher. I have seen a lot of Jim Butcher. Hell, I *own* quite a bit of Jim Butcher. But I've never read Jim Butcher. He's always been one of those authors that sits on my shelf....waiting and then getting moved down the line.

So I finally bit the bullet and finished the first novel in his high-fantasy "Codex Alera" series -- The Furies of Calderon and I was pleasantly surprised. A world where nearly everyone has some innate elemental magical ability (air, water, fire, earth, etc), it's a rare (and not great) thing if you don't develop your own ability by puberty. One's ability/skill with "furycrafting" plays a role in determining social hierarchies and status with First Lord Gaius Sextus being among the most powerful and the current ruler of Alera.

So we have young Tavi, still waiting at 15 to find his ability, quickly wrapped up in some political intrigue through the plotline of Amara and her mentor Fidelias who are "Cursors" (messengers and spies) for the First Lord. Turns out there's a rebellion afoot amongst the First Lord's vassals and Fidelias is among the traitors trying to spur an attack by the warlike Marat tribes to help undermine the First Lord. Amara escapes and eventually her storyline and Tavi's meet up along with Tavi's aunt/uncle Bernard and Isana who are trying to warn the surrounding garrison of the impending attack/plot/etc.

Butcher keeps the plotlines moving but more importantly keeps the action focused on a small group of characters. He gives them enough to do and varies their individual plotlines enough that the reader stays engaged without being overwhelmed by Proper Nouns. Fantasy novels rarely do courtly politicking well, so Butcher's deft touch was a welcome addition.

The characters are compelling enough without being caricatures (Uncle Bernard in particular) and there's enough hints that Tavi has more to offer beyond natural pluck and bravery to keep me interested in the next novel in the series. So as an intro to Butcher, I ain't mad.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Unfortunately not great

I am a huge fan of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files audio version with James Marsters. After re-listening to that series a second time, I decided to try another of his works. This one has some mixed reviews but overall fairly positive. Thankfully the horns several reviewers mentioned are gone. However, I agree with some other reviewers who say that this is not one of Jim Butcher's best books and definitely nowhere near as good as the Dresden Files. It's a different type of story, of course, and I didn't expect it to be the same. There is a lot of world building that is lacking and which ends up making the listening feel a bit tedious, flat, empty, and ultimately not that interesting. I kept trying to hang in there to give it a chance, but I'm over halfway through and I think I'm going to call it quits. It's never a good sign if a book feels like a chore. There's much that is excellent about the ideas in the story, characters, etcetera but it is not enough nor brought together well, in my opinion. So, I am off to try one of his other creations.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Dope!

solid book by Jim butcher. love Dresden files, and he did well writing in this different style. can't wait to start the next!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great!

Rome & Pokemon - a surprisingly wonderful mix.

Immersive world building & spot on narration.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Coro-lary or Corolla-ree?

Sometimes British pronunciations get exceptionally interesting. "Corollary" was one of those words I had obviously never heard pronounced before; I missed part of the book because I was trying to figure out first what the word meant and then how to wrap my mouth around it (say "corolla" and then add "ree") I did back the book up and catch what I missed, but that was a doozie of a word.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Jim Butchers alright with me.

Literally only listened to this because I liked The Dresden Files. Not something I would have gone for at all otherwise but I really liked it and will continue with the series. Narrator was great! Really starting to like Jim Butchers style.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Stick with Dresden

Butcher is a good author, but this earlier work struggles in a lot of ways. Some of those ways is really cheesy one liners that will take you out of the experience (When one character said "it followed me home, can I keep it" I had to put the book down for a bit), and his obsession with women. If a character utters the word "is it because I'm a woman" (yes, that does happen in this book) then I think it's fair to say bad writer, no scotch. Same goes for the several romance scenes that this book would be better without. Maybe that's your thing, but it's not mine

The thing that really killed me though was the final conflict, which was very muddy thanks to DBZ levels of side character narration of the fight. There's also a lot of plot threads that didn't need to be there, really over the top villainy, and some really blatant lamp shade hanging. I swear there was a point where it was really clear an editor or beta reader told him about some thing someone could have done and he just wrote in three or four lines to lampshade it and called it good.

There are other problems but I looked past the for the most part. The book is a C+ for around 85% of it and then it shits the bed.

As always, Kate does an amazing job narrating.

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